The New Mark
by ekrolo2
Summary: While investigating a Voldemort worshiping cult, Teddy Lupin is captured, his partner is murdered and it looks as though he may soon join him...


"Wake up," In his groggy sleep, Teddy Lupin heard a heavily accented voice address him, one with a foul enough stench to knock him right back into unconsciousness. Unable to comprehend where he even was, Teddy merely let out a barely audible moan in response.

"Wake up!" The voice called out to him once more, louder and with a sharper edge to it. Once again, Teddy merely moaned in response, his head swirling in a vortex of grogginess and darkness. A sudden yet powerful blow to the side of his face, however, rectified this, releasing a jolt of pain coursing through his entire body.

Teddy's eyed snapped open, his vision blurry and a splitting headache keeping him fairly out of it despite being more aware of his surroundings. A second blow arrived, this one to the left side of his face, cutting his lower lip in the process and drawing blood from his mouth.

He tried to defend himself but his arms wouldn't obey, or rather, couldn't, something was holding them down. Next, he tried to strike with his legs at the assailant and discovered them to be in much the same situation. As attempted to pull his arms up, he felt something rough eat away at his wrists with every pull and even in his laziness realized a tight series ropes bound around all of his limbs.

With his vision rapidly clearing up and the grogginess fading, Teddy saw the origin of the voice and promptly scowled at the man. Just by looking at him, Teddy knew he was dealing with a hardened criminal, his decade-long career with the Auror's giving him a keen eye for his type. Though he leans forward, Teddy knows he's well over six feet tall with a 40-year-old face hardened by decades of stress, violence and dark arts.

"Good," The thug in question smiled coldly, revealing a grill through his thick, black beard covering most of his teeth. "The boss will be pleased you're awake."

Instantly, Teddy recognized the accent as Russian and a horrible feeling twisted crept into his gut with his clearing mind. Jerking his head around to survey his environment, he found himself in an old and decrepit house, one not lived in for many, many years given the cobwebs and dust covering the place. Small torches dimly light the room, revealing more men inside with him. At least 9 by his count with more likely outside, patrolling the perimeter.

Yet, he finds no sign of his partner, Raymond, anywhere.

"Your comrade is dead," The grill thug states with a pleased smile on his face. "He put up a good fight, but no amount of skill can outmatch superior numbers."

The grill thug walks off, snapping his fingers towards two men to his left then pointing at Teddy. They nod and walk to the trapped Auror's sides to keep an eye on him while their superior leaves the room.

Teddy tried to his best to recollect the events leading up to this as best he can with his tired mind and body. Two weeks prior, the Romanian Ministry of Magic informed the Auror's Office is a Voldemort worshipping cult operating in the rural areas of the country. A cult attempting to revive the Dark Lord through human sacrifices using knowledge from a tome reportedly containing knowledge from Voldemort himself.

Nothing unexpected for the Auror's Office, reports and cult such as these sprang up almost immediately following Voldemort's demise nearly 35 years ago and though they've diminished since they were never taken lightly. Especially once Harry became head of the Office. This report was followed up by pictures of the mutilated bodies of sacrificial victims, proving this was no mere rumor.

Several teams were dispatched to Romania with local officers assisting in the hunt. Once, Harry would've gone himself to investigate the incident, but his many years of stress were starting to take their toll on his aging body and younger men would need to manage without him. Most were unlucky in their findings, except Teddy and Raymond who found themselves leading the hunt. Teddy thought himself lucky back then, the sooner the mission was completed, the sooner he could go back home to his wife and children. Yet, when he and Raymond stumbled upon a ritual in progress and managed to claim the so-called Tome of Voldemort, the trap was sprung.

What happened next was a blur to Teddy, the Tome was actually a Portkey which transported them into the middle of a dark, foreboding forest that could give the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts a run for its money. He remembered sparks of magic whizzing by, him and Raymond running through dirt and branches with yells of vicious cultists ringing in their ears. Then, darkness. Until now.

The door on the opposite end of the room creaked open, followed by the creaking of floor boards under heavy, thudding footsteps. The soldiers next to Teddy stiffened like soldiers approached by their commanding officer. The grill thug returned, smiling gleefully at Teddy while another man appeared right in front of him.

Like most of the others in the room, the man before him wore a gray suit with a black shirt underneath, his fingers adorned with several golden rings and an equally gaudy watch on his left wrist. Three tattoos visibly stuck out, one of a skull on his right hand, one of the Virgin Mary on his left and a pair of conjoined, black eagles on the base of his neck.

Yet, it was his face which sent a chill down Teddy's spine. Though not precisely the same, the man's five o'clock shadow, black slid back hair and cold features instantly reminded him of someone from his past. Someone who took away two precious things from him before he was old enough to even miss them: Antonin Dolohov.

But it was impossible! Antonin Dolohov died 28 years prior! During the period of removing the Dementors from Azkaban and moving criminals into the newer Blackgate facility, Dolohov escaped in the transitional period when Teddy was six years old. For three months he couldn't sleep, cursing himself for snooping on Harry and Ron's conversation which revealed him as the murder of his parents.

As children often do, Teddy panicked. He feared for the lives of everyone, thinking Dolohov would blast through the front door, murder everyone he knows and loves again and leave him alone in the world just out of spite. Luckily for him, Harry finally tracked down Dolohov in Ireland and in a climactic duel, killed one of the last of the original Death Eaters.

Teddy never forgot that period of his life, the helplessness that greatly inspired him to pursue the career of an Auror in spite of the protests of his deceased grandmother Andromeda. Yet, as he stared into a man who morbidly resembles the murderer of his parents, Teddy felt the same sense of helplessness once again. A scared boy facing his worst nightmare.

The man smirked. "Theodore Remus Lupin ," He said Teddy's name with a cold edge to his voice. "I've waited to see that look on your face for a very long time, I'm glad you did not disappoint."

"Who-who the bloody hell are you?" Teddy tried to sound intimidating but his aching body failed him, making him sound like a petulant child more than anything.

"Anatoli Kynazev," He replied simply while removing his jacket. "Nephew of a man you are quite familiar with, after all, a family never forgets the faces and names of those responsible for murdering their kin. Wouldn't you agree?"

He asked with a raised eyebrow, his only response from Teddy being a scowl of contempt. He passed his jacket casually to one of his followers before pulling the sleeves of his shirt up. "Of course, you do, I can see it in your eyes as you look at me.

Anatoli slowly removed the rings from his fingers. "It's the same look I have whenever I see a photograph of your famous godfather, Harry Potter. The greatest wizard of our time, savior of the world,..." He handed the rings over to another of his henchmen. "They should add incredibly predictable to his myriad of titles. I knew the instant a cult worshipping Voldemort arrived here, he'd come here himself or send someone over."

"Y-you planned for this...?" Teddy inquired, noticing one of his henchmen hand a pair of something to Knyazev.

"Indeed," Knyazev pulled two steel brass knuckles over his fingers. "At first, when I saw he didn't come here himself, I was a bit disappointed. Until I heard you were here, then it all become all the more sweet. After that, it was a simple matter of leading you to this place."

Before Teddy could even register the punch, he felt metal smash against the right side of his face. "My uncle was not a good man," Knyazev stated as if he didn't just hit him with the force of a battering ram. "Neither am I, but family is family."

A second punch arrived, this time, from the other side, blood soon came rushing to Teddy's mouth. "And I loved mine in spite of this. It is for this reason, I escaped from the Gulag's of Siberia and orchestrated all of this."

This time, Knyazev delivered multiple punches to Teddy's torso, with a speed and ferocity which nearly knocked him and the chair back were it not held in place by the guards. This time, blood did spill from the Auror's lips, his breathing becoming erratic and strained from the damage done to his ribs.

"As I said, I understand why your godfather killed my uncle," Knyazev leans forward. "Revenge is an honest goal to pursue. More honest than most."

He headbutted Teddy, shattering his nose. "But revenge works both ways my friend, everyone is someone's mother or father or brother or sister or friend. Thus, revenge must be executed completely or with great care to ensure you get away with it."

He uppercut ed Teddy, staining his steel brass knuckles with the younger man's blood. "That is why you shall not fall to magic. No, you will suffer and die under more... Muggle methods. Not that you haven't noticed already."

His henchmen chuckled as all cruel men do when they think they're in control of the situation. "What's left of your body will be sent to your godfather to know he definitively failed you. So when he spends those long nights sitting in his comfy office, he will know he could've saved you but didn't. Just as I was somewhere else when my family died, unable to help." Knyazev smiled coldly at Teddy as he took hold of his hair. "Except I didn't have a choice, he did."

Knyazev raised his fist for another blow with Teddy holding his breath to try and hold out in case someone, anyone could arrive in time to save him. Slim as that possibility seemed. Just before the metal connected once more to the flesh of his face, a nearby window suddenly and loudly snapped to pieces followed by something large and heavy smashing onto the ground.

"H...He...Help..." A weak, Russian voice called out to the others in the room. Knyazev looked at the grill thug and nodded in the direction of the voice. Illuminating the room with their wands, the grill thug, and two others found another of their associate lying on the ground. Even from this distance, Teddy could see the ruined features of the man's face, the result of a severe pounding. What Teddy himself will no doubt look like.

"What happened?" Who did this to you?" The grill thug kneeled next to the wounded soldier. "Speak damn it!"

"He-he said..." The wounded man trailed off before getting gently slapped in the face by the grill thug.

"Who said what?" The grill thug demanded, his patience running out with the raising of his voice.

"He said... to tell you... The Batman's... coming..."

The wounded soldier finally fainted, his words seemingly dropping the temperature of the room even lower. Taking a moment to look around, Teddy immediately noticed all of them, bar Knyazev, stiffen and gulp, their eyes darting around the shadows of the room for any movement.

The Batman appeared several months ago, firstly in Africa before moving on to Israel, Turkey, and then stopping in Greece. A monster from the underworld according to accounts of terrified dark wizards, this vigilante had already earned a dreaded reputation for his sneak tactics and brutal yet non-lethal elimination of criminal wizards.

Accounts as to who or what he is vary and remained wild speculation at best. Some called him a mutated werewolf who turned into a giant bat, others a demonic spirit of vengeance sent to dish out justice. The only consistencies remained his unorthodox ways of dealing with wizards and the lack of any casualties thus far. A few back at the office even jokingly thought he'd become the next Mad-Eye Moody if he kept going at this rate.

More noise erupted from downstairs, the sound of wood breaking, of spells being cast but above all, the terrified screams and pleas of Knyazev's men down below.

"Cover the door," Knyazev barked to his men and to Teddy's surprise, none of them obeyed him at first. "I said cover the damn door!"

They all did as ordered then, with extreme hesitation as they slowly advanced on the door, their wands aiming for it as if the mother of all beasts was about to blast through it. As Teddy suspected, 12 men were in the room with the exception of himself.

"Help me get him in there!" Knyazev ordered the grill thug, both of them grabbing Teddy's chair and hauling him to an adjacent, smaller room. Grill slammed the door shut, locking it behind him with his wand always trained and ready to fire at a moments notice. Knyazev made sure Teddy never left his sight, for the Batman was surely after the captured Auror, making him a worthwhile bargaining chip.

A dim light illuminated the bottom of the room from the door crack at the bottom. Shadows passed over it, revealing the positions of Knyazev's henchmen. Floor boards continued to creak with their slow and deliberate movements, making the already tense situation all the worse for everyone, especially themselves.

Then, the light died without warning and all hell broke loose.

Loud thuds followed by screams of pain or fear or both echoed throughout the house. Kynazev's men scrambled to make sense of it all, firing off deadly curses in every direction, their brief lights once again illuminating through the crack of the adjacent room's bottom door.

"Where is he?!"

"My arm! Something's stuck in my arm!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

"He won't die! I shot him and he won't die!"

Grill took a few steps back as the noise only grew, their pained screams now joined by something whizzing through the air and the brittle wood of the house breaking apart. Glancing to his left, Teddy even spotted Knyazev momentarily took his eyes off his hostage as the chaos escalated.

Teddy found himself torn. The Batman's disdain for criminals was well known even amongst the tide of rumors and speculation surrounding him. Yet, he did not hesitate to hurt Aurors or any form of law enforcement if they got in his way. Indeed, one battle in Greece where he was cornered reportedly resulted in several officers ending up in body casts with dozens more bitten by savage swarms of bats.

They, however, were the ones to corner him. Should this Batman succeed in taking Knyazev and his men down, he'd chose his words carefully with the vigilante. The noise faded with only barely audible murmurs and moans cutting through the tension filled air, none of them even hear a footstep on the other side. For a few scant moments, they thought it might be over.

Until one of the two men responsible for keeping watch on Teddy came crashing right through the door, splitting it open and smashing right past Grill.

Knyazev and Grill open fire, their wands releasing the deadly, unforgivable curses green energy through the broken door. In the noise of their own unleashing magic and shouts, they failed to take notice of a grapple line come crashing from the shadowed ceiling above them and pierce right through the back portion of Teddy's chair.

The line pulled up, taking the chair and the tied up Teddy Lupin with it, hoisting him just a few feet above the ground. When Knyazev and Grill look up at the perplexing sight, halting their fire, the floor beneath them cracked apart from an explosion. With loud yells of rage and fear, they both plummeted into the lower floor of the building.

Examining the line, Teddy froze completely when he noticed a white pair of blinking eyes looking down at him from the ceiling. With a loud gust of wind, a giant, black cloaked, horned man descended from above and landed to where Kynazev and Grill ended up.

His head immediately snaps down where he sees Avada's firing through the air, briefly illuminating the room and allowing Teddy small glimpses of the Batman take out the two dark wizards with nothing but his bare fists! Something Teddy is certain of as he hears no incantations or spells firing, just the loud thuds of something smashing against something else, usually with pained yells from the two dark wizards accompanying them.

When the fighting finally stopped with no sign of Grill and Knyazev, the line lowered Teddy towards the ground. When he finally landed, his leg brushed against the palm of a tattooed hand he immediately recognized as belonging to Knyazev as it is of the Virgin Mary. He felt something strong grab the chair firmly behind him, along with blades cutting through the ropes binding his hands and feet.

"Are you alright?"

A deep voice inquired from the shadows, a demonic yet distinctly American sounding one Teddy heard a great many times in Muggle horror films he used to scare his younger, adopted siblings, particularly Rose and Lilly. Rubbing his trained wrists, he reluctantly turned his head around and saw the same pair of white, blinking ears staring at him.

"Y-yes, I just-" He tried to rise only for his legs to fail him, if not for Batman grabbing the back of his shirt, he'd have fallen face first onto the floor, disfiguring his already ghastly face even worse. "T-t-thank you."

"Don't thank me," The Batman states plainly, putting Teddy's arm over his stiff shoulder and helping him out of the house. "Are you strong enough to cast a Patronus?"

"Course," Teddy replies, wincing every other step from the pain in his ribs. The two of them exit the house and, no surprise, pass several equally unconscious men lying on the ground, no doubt the guards commanded to patrol the perimeter. "Are they...?"

"They're alive," The Batman confirmed. "They probably wish they weren't, but they'll live."

Gently, the Batman placed Teddy near a large boulder protruding from the ground. Still wincing from the pain, Teddy gets a closer look at the vigilante. Most of his face is covered by a pitch black cowl with hand-sized horns protruding from it. He wore a pair of black, spiked gauntlets and boots along with a fairly large, black bat insignia placed on his chest, a stark contrast to the rest of the gray suit and golden belt hanging around his waist.

He reached inside of it and pulled out a small potion from one of the compartments. "Here," He handed the potion over. "This should help with the pain until the others find you."

Fully aware that this man isn't likely to poison him after going through all the trouble of rescuing him, Teddy drinks the contents of the potion and feels his neck and nostrils burn from it immediately. Nearby, he heard something resembling a snort from the masked figure.

"Thanks for warning me," Teddy sarcastically replies, coughing from the burning sensation.

"Hardly the worst pain you've felt tonight," The Batman points out, reaching back into his belt and pulling out two wands, one Teddy immediately noticed was his.

"How did you-?"

"Cast your Patronus," The Batman interjected, not intent on revealing his mysterious ways. Knowing he would have no luck in doing so, Teddy cast the spell and from his wand erupted a bright, giant bear, the source of many "Teddy Bear" jokes from his stint at Hogwarts. After giving the corporeal animal his instructions, the bear ran into the woods.

After a night as stressful as this, Teddy felt like simply leaning back against the boulder and falling asleep, secure in the knowledge that the others would arrive in no time to find him.

"Zur-En-Arrh!"

The Batman proclaimed, his voice ending whatever plans Teddy had of drifting off as a red light burst from the wand Teddy only then recognized as belonging to Knyazev. The orb of red floated several dozen feet above the ground before exploding outward into an imposing sight indeed. Just as Voldemort and his followers did, the Batman's "mark" was a giant, burning bat in the sky in the shape of the emblem adorned on his chest. A sign that the Batman was here, and that he was victorious.

Teddy found himself staring at the image in awe, eerily reminded was he of the burning mark of Zorro and wondered if this Batman was a fan as well. Yet, when he turned to address the man, Teddy discovered he was alone, the only thing left of the masked vigilante the discarded potion jar on the floor.

"Lupin! Lupin, are you alright?!"

His comrades called out to him, sending a jolt of relief through Teddy's system he hadn't felt since Victoire mistakenly believed she got pregnant mere weeks after their wedding. He loved his wife and his little girl, Nymphadora named after his deceased mother, but he was most definitely not ready to become a father quite so soon.

"What the bloody hell happened here?!" One of his associates proclaimed, examining the ground littered with unconscious thugs then staring at the burning bat symbol in the sky.

"Isn't it obvious mate?" Teddy chuckles in spite of his still hurting, broken ribs. "The bloody Batman was here."

* * *

With the dawn of day fast approaching, the Batman glided over the rooftops of Bucharest, his already foreboding appearance enhanced by the black fabric stretching out like a giant pair of imposing batwings. Allowing him to fly across the sky towards his destination: The Radisson Blu Hotel. A Muggle establishment of the highest order where the most luxurious of clients chose to spent their nights and days during their temporary trips to the city.

As he does do, a great sense of pride and relief washes over him, something he always felt whenever he was high above the ground, soaring across the sky with nary a care in the world.

His room was on one of the highest levels of the structure, a conscious choice to avoid anyone else in the building from spotting him. With nary a sound, he lands on the balcony and smirks upon finding his faithful, life-long servant and friend, Alfred Pennyworth, loyal House-elf, dressed in his usual tuxedo attire waiting for him with a freshly made sandwich and tea.

"I trust your hunt was successful?" He inquired while raising the tray towards his master.

"Aren't they always?" The Batman replied while removing the bladed gloves and gauntlets from his arms.

"Need I remind you of the... what do the muggles call it? Machine gun incident."

The vigilante glared at his servant. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"Not in this lifetime," Alfred chuckled while placing the tray on his master's nightstand. He examined the man's body closely and found nothing resembling an injury on his entire person, not that it was easy to spot bruises under so much armor. "Still, I imagine it was nice seeing master Teddy once more, he was always such a nice lad, a bit odd but nice none the less."

Removing his cowl and the spell altering his eyes, Scorpius Malfoy smirked at Alfred's comment about his cousin being a bit odd as he chowed down on the sandwich. Not that you could tell he was a Malfoy given his black, somewhat wild hair and brown eyes making him closer to a Black or Greengrass in appearance.

"It was," Scorpius admitted with a hint of nostalgia in his voice. "Shame it had to be in another house with us fighting."

"At least, it wasn't each other this time," Alfred states plainly with a shadow of a smile on his face as he earned another glare from Scorpius.

"We all make mistakes when we're young and stupid Alfred," Is all Scorpius said on the matter before fully devouring the sandwich entirely.

"Yes, and all men acquire great deal more wisdom at the old, jaded ages of 23, don't they sir?"

"24 in 5 months, Alfred," Scorpius replied with a triumphant, distinctly Malfoy like smirk. "And just for that last comment, you're cleaning my boots tonight."

This time, it was Alfred who glared, eyeing the footwear in question with a mix of dread and suspicion. His Elf noise picking up the horrid stench from them even from a few feet away. "This is most cruel and unusual sir."

"Take it up with Aunt Hermione, she's always liked a good House-elf sob story" Scorpius stated while sipping the tea, his smirk never quite leaving his features. How could it when he successfully saved his, for all intents and purposes, big brother and potentially earned himself allies in the Auror's office. He will need them, for soon, he will return to Britain after nearly 7 years to reclaim his family fortune and create a permanent, stable base of operations for Scorpius Malfoy, and more importantly, the Batman.

* * *

 **And so it ends! I went through quite a few versions of this one shot with earlier drafts having Draco as Batman and rescuing Andromeda Tonks from Death Eaters looking to torture and kill her to make Narcissa Malfoy pay for setting up Voldemort's failure. However, with Scorpius I'd have greater freedom to shape him as a character pre and post Batman so I went with him instead.**

 **Will I do more in this hypothetical universe? Possibly. I've got a prequel chronicling Scorpius' last year in Hogwarts before he went off to hunt down Joe Chill and a story where Onomatopoeia and Deadshot are hired to kill Hermione before she can assume her position as Minister of Magic.**

 **But for now, I'm pleased with this one-shot and I hope you all were too!**


End file.
